Sofia, Mar. 04 (BTA/GNA) – Bulgaria is obliged to purchase huge quantities of vaccines against COVID-19 until 2025 but has raised the matter of the contract’s termination before the European Commission, caretaker Health Minister Assen Medjidiev said on Bulgarian National Television’s Saturday morning show. The population currently does not need vaccines against COVID-19; the cases of measles and scarlet fever have increased significantly, and this year’s flu has more severe symptoms, he added.
Bulgaria has already scrapped huge quantities of vaccine doses, and this year another 2,800,000 doses will be scrapped, he went on to say. This is a huge financial resource; the money going into the purchase and scrapping of these vaccines is enough to build a children’s hospital as well as leave resources for children’s centres in villages. “I firmly told the European Commission that Bulgaria is firmly in favour of terminating the contract with Pfizer for the purchase of vaccines,” he noted. The Polish Minister of Health was the first to back Bulgaria’s position; there is also support from Czechia and Lithuania, he specified.
In his words, the COVID situation in Bulgaria has past and all expert comment that the new type of the virus circumvents these vaccines. Also, Bulgaria has to purchase booster shots when the number of vaccinated persons is low, meaning there is nowhere to apply the boosters.
The anti-vaccination campaign that happened in Bulgaria resulted in a drop in the number of people getting the compulsory shots from the immunization calendar. “There is refusal to get vaccinated against measles, and we should consider how to introduce the vaccination against scarlet fever – these are our serious problems,” Medjidiev argued.
BTA/GNA